Uploads from Cher Ping

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:39:39 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

This is an extremely old picture that I took in September 2012 during the Aachen Open Air Concerts. Since multiple concerts were taking place simultaneously over aachen, you really have to decide which concert to attend (to get the front positions) and hope that you like the music performed.

Listening to the music from this group was definitely a good choice. I hope they will be singing in this year's concert again.

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Sony A850, 85mm CZ F1.4 @F2. iso 1250

Kasia

nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:53:47 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

I was in Singapore sometime ago and had the privilege of attending a workshop conducted by TS Sim. This workshop was one of the more fun ones I've attended, and consisted of quite a lot of teaching and interaction. While it is common to find skilled professionals, Sim was both skilled at his art, and able to teach. We had been chatting over the net for a few months and it was a real privilege to meet in person, and to have a chance to learn something from him.

Anyway, the shoot with the model, Kasia, was a good one. She was comfortable in front of the camera, and was eager to share her thoughts with us. With a good model before the camera, almost any monkey can click on the shutter and take decent pictures. :)

Ultimately, the takeaways from the course was just that: I'm a shutter monkey.

nah! I'm just kidding.

Though I had the chance to learn technique, the most important thing I've picked up was that establishing a good rapport with the model can really improve the results. Instead of a mere photoshoot, it becomes a collaboration together with the model.

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Techie details: Taken with the Sony A77. I didn't expect to go for any course, so I didn't have any of my Zeiss lenses with me. This was taken with the "Advanced kit lens" (16-105mm). One light in a stripbox at camera left literally next to the model. Triggered by optical slave because of a gremlin attack on the equipment. :P

The blue tone added in post - primarily because I can, and I like it.

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:56:24 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

Taken when I was visiting lightGIANTS for a studio shoot. This was taken with high ISO and wide open - it was not my turn with the flash, and I thought the light fell on her quite nicely. The light in this case came from 2 sources - the modelling lamp above and the lights behind (mock painted windows created by Scott Lewis).

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Sony A850, Tamron 28-75. PP to up the contrast. I think I also warmed it further to produce the seedy look.

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 07:25:49 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

As usual, I am terribly late with my uploads. I usually take a bit of time to look through my pics and I like some separation between the time when I take the picture and the time I process it. However, I still have pictures from September 2011 that I have yet to look through!

Anyway, this picture was taken in 2012 September, at a shoot organized by lightGIANTS. I'm glad to have had the chance to travel down to join the shoot (and hope to do so again soon).

The theme of this shoot involved guns, smoke, tears, blood, gore and other stuff. and of course, babes. We didn't have Rambo there, so we did the next best thing: attractive ladies who can kick butts. :P

.. and it turned out to be a better choice. ;)

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Sony A850, Tamron 28-75 @ 55mm, F4.5 The lighting for this is simple but effective: a bowens mounted high overhead to the camera left in a big octa.

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:36:53 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

Some days ago, I uploaded a picture of my friend taking a picture. This was my take of the same scene..

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On camera flash, gelled with 1/2 CTO to "match" the rising sun. Taken with the CZ 16-35 at F2.8 and 28mm

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:57:31 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

This was taken at the last remaining pre-dawn moments at San Marco. While most tourists are happily snoozing away in their warm beds, costumed people ("masks") and the photographers ("somewhat dumb people") can already be found at San Marco, shooting all they can.

I'm slightly hard on photographers - not because I think photography is a stupid hobby, but rather because it leads us to do strange things that are unthinkable to most people: waking up early while on vacation, staying up late to catch star trails, lugging TONS of equipment just to go to that exotic spot, braving rain, hail, strong winds and the odd grizzly bear just to get that landscape shot... Its logically much easier to get a post card. Or to buy that picture book that someone else produced. ;)

But on and on we (photographers) go, always straining to improve that shot, and spending more money on equipment in the hope of better results. Isn't that crazy? :P

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Rhetorics aside, this shot was taken pre-dawn, and corrected in post - straightened the building so that the tilting effect is not there. I also added some warmth since I shot with the wrong WB..

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:51:31 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

Venice is really a very unique place - you find artists of all mediums appearing there - and not just photographers.

This was taken last year (2012) during the Carnival. The artist, an elderly lady, was sketching the costumes of a group of people and I was fortunate enough to catch her work. Sadly, she was irritated by the crowd and left shortly after.

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Sony A77, 70-200 lens. Its not that important. :P

shoot at dawn (Venice)

nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:34:01 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

I wasn't feeling terribly inspired on the last day, so when I had my UWA lens on, I just went ahead to do behind-the-scene shots.

Its not so much a work of art, but it serves its purpose: a record of a good friend taking pictures at the carnival in Venice.
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A850, CZ 16-35, flashed with gel (1/2 CTO)

.. anticipation..

nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:38:01 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

I have about 1.5 weeks before going down to Venice for the carnival. As usual, before any photo project, the butterflies are having their wild parties and making me nervous.

Will I do better this time? Will I suck more than ever? Should I baptize my cameras into the lagoon? Questions like this (and more) are constantly flooding me.

For all the nervousness it brings, I'm looking forward to the upcoming trip - to be with friends and other like-minded people, to get to know new faces/masks and to see some familiar faces.

Its going to be fun. :D

This pic is dedicated to my carnival friends - those whom I will and will not be meeting in Venice 2013. Guys, you rock.

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As usual, this shot has a little story to it. I was walking along, minding my own business in aachen and I spotted these masks being sold (as costumes for the parade in aachen). I had been struggling with the sense of anticipation and trying to ease up - and the picture of 2 masks, elegantly lighted, came to mind.

I got the masks, and reused some background material I got years back. The lighting itself was relatively simple - a 1/2 CTO warmed fill light using a Sony HVL 58AM in a lumiquest LTP on camera left, and a 3/4 CTO warmed key (or is this accent?) light, snoot+grided at lowest power at camera upper left, behind the masks. The two shots with just each flash are attached in the comments section for clarification. Both flashes were triggered by Pixel Kings. This is taken straight from camera.

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:40:14 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

Hope all of you had a wonderful start to 2013. Its been interesting so far - so lets see what the rest of the year brings.

I've not been uploading for quite a while - not because there was nothing to upload, but rather because I've been pretty occupied with lots of things.

I've also not been actively shooting since the start of december - partially due to the awful light, but also due to the cold. *shiver*

Then it hit me - OMG I'm going to go Venice for the canival soon. I better check that I still know how to use my camera.

*PANIC PANIC PANIC*

.. so i got out and, to my joy, found that Tulips are back in season again. I've shot them previously and I thought that it should be fun to try to them again.

.. I got a whole lot of them, and since my usual spot in my livinng room was taken up by some other stuff, I decided to try shooting in the kitchen. With the sun coming in, it *might* turn out nice.

I didn't expect it, but with the heating from my neighbours living below, and with the sun coming in, my kitchen became actually warmer than my living room (with the heating on). The tulips reacted to the warmth and actually started blooming. I wasn't planning to shoot them with their petals opened, so I had to improvise in a big hurry with flashes, etc.

The tulips are still quite fresh - so I'm hoping to do another shoot maybe around on tuesday evening or wednesday. Lets see if I can come up with something better.

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This particular shot was done with 2 flashes - one on camera right, slightly above, at a distance of about 1.5 meters. It was shooting at TTL, +0.7 EV. The other flash is at camera left, below the flower and shooting at minimal power through the petal so that I have a wee bit of a fill. I guess it was about 1 meter away. Both flashes were triggered using Pixel Kings.

Taken with my sigma 50mm macro lens on my Sony A850 at F8, 1/500, iso 100. (so everything you see is really flash powered)

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 05:02:00 -0800

Cher Ping posted a photo:

its been a long while since my last upload. I've been keeping busy and trying to cope with some changes.

Anyway, I was invited to join a shoot hosted by lightgiants in Karlsruhe (www.lightgiants.com) and it was fun. I'll be posting pictures from this shoot and other pictures in the days to come, hopefully.

What can I say about the shoot? well, there was plenty of smoke, pain, blood, guns and other dangerous weapons, all wielded by the fairer gender. ;)

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Mamiya DM28 on a Mamiya AFD, 80mm@F4-ish. One Bowens flash mounted above to camera left, triggered by Yongnuo. Perhaps I should have gotten a reflector on the right side, but such brillant flashes only comes after the hurly burly's done.

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 03:46:27 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

Its not every day that I get to a place with nice shadows. The architectural structure of the photokina exhibition halls happen to be one such place (if you chance on it at the right time).

I met up with Stephanie at photokina and while wandering around, chanced on this. and being people-shy (as usual), I waited for people to clear off so that I can take a decent shot. To my surprise, someone stopped to ask us if we could help to take a picture of him. Stephanie did the honours and I just stood by. Since I didn't want to waste the opportunity, I just took a few snaps at the same time.

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Sony A850, Tamron 28-75. Original jpeg was in B/W, but this was "re-developed" from RAW. more on my flickr stream..

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:17:47 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

hope this works out. Facebook eats up a lot of light in their rendering - but when viewing the jpeg, it looks good on my normal monitor.

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taken with my panasonic LX 3. here, the normal morning workforce zombie going to work...

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 03:40:55 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

Its once again September. For the past 6 years, Aachen has been holding september open air concerts and this year, we have 30 groups performing. I'm not able to go everywhere at once, so I'll just present pics here (and take my time to enjoy the music)

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A77, Sigma 70-200, F5 (my aperture value jumped for some reason) iso 1250

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:50:41 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

Performer expressing the life and death of a rose during the Venetian Messe at Ludwigsburg. This turned out better than I expected, and I'm really surprised. :P

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Sony A850, Tamron 28-75mm at F3.2, iso 1250..

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:42:40 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

its been quite a while since I had to fight light leaks. It seems like like one of my acquisitions (Mamiya 645 AFD) has a leak somewhere, and I'm trying to find it.

can anyone help?

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:04:19 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

am having a shitty day, and matching mode. so I'm just posting this and not adding too much of my usual unending flow of words.

Taken in Saint Sulpice, Paris. Its not HDR even if it does look like it. Taken with one of my favourite lens which is out on loan.

This is one example where distortions (its certainly there) can help to add a sense of place..

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A77, Sigma 10-20, Iso 640, F11, 10mm, 1/5. Warmed a wee bit in post, added some contrast, and enhanced the light a wee bit. The light streams were there in the originals, so I just helped it a wee bit.

hug me!!!

nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:14:39 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

I'm usually quirky - so when I spotted this, I couldn't resist it.

Doesn't it look like the girl is about to be hugged by that thingy? :D

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Mamiya 645 AFD, 55-110mm zoom, ilford iso 400 expired film. I have no idea why, but it seems that ilford is especially prone to have spotty bits left on the film after developing. hm.

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 12:51:05 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

This is part 1 of 2 of the "taking it all in" series.

Having tried a lot of different cameras by now, in a fit of madness, I thought I'd shoot without the skis for now. Those in the joke would know that I'm very fond of the Kiev 88 cameras - or aka - the Hasselbladskis. They may be quirky, but they allow for some excellent glass to be used with them. Its a cheaper route to get to awesome gear. (doesn't make the pictures better, though - but that's another topic altogether)

The Hasselblad Xpan is a discontinued camera which allows users to shoot at the normal 24x35mm or a 24x65mm. Its not unique in that the russian Horizon allows a 24x58mm film frame to be shot - but that uses a different kind of lens altogether.

Why would I want to go back to 35mm film? well. to be honest, my first choice would have been something that shoots 6x17. But those things are heavy - too heavy for the kind of trekking I like to do. (but then again, if you meet bigfoot on such treks, you can bash bigfoot over the head with it - and when search&rescue folks discover your remains, the 6x17 would probably be still well and alive). Though I really love Pano shooting, I'm not prepared to lug around a 6x17 cameras yet. (other drawbacks: you get 4 shots per roll of film. while I usually need a max of 2 shots per scene to get it right, I'm slightly hesitant to keep my shots to just 4 per roll. That's a lot of rolls of film...)

anyway, now that the long rambling of an introduction is over, this shot also goes to show something: distortion - or the lack of it. It is often said by new photographers that they would like a wide angle lens "to get it all in". well done. They get it all in, but then, wide angle lenses come with a degree of distortion or other. In this case, the distortion, if any, is negligible.

is it really necessary to get a XPan to show this? of course not. Technically, its probably possible to use a 50mm lens (or equivalent angle of view), stand far enough, and crop. But then, I'd have probably less fun.

Anyway, for those who are curious: the Xpan is an awesome camera. I'm really fascinated with it, more than any of my other cameras (perhaps with the exception of my A700s, but that's another medium altogether)

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Taken with the Hasselblad xpan with the 45mm lens . Fuji Iso 200 Superia

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nobody@flickr.com (Cher Ping) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 12:49:21 -0700

Cher Ping posted a photo:

This is part 2 of 2 of the "taking it all in" series.

This was taken at "more or less" the same spot as the picture taken by the XPan. It is however, taken with a 15mm Voigtländer lens on a Bessa R(another series of acquisitions that I made)(note: I only go purchase crazy when my personal life is in chaos). In this case, since my Bessa R is out of focus, since the 15mm lens requires scale focusing anyway, and since I forgot to bring my viewfinder for the 15mm, this shot was composed from guesswork.

In this case, the distortion is clear. you can't shoot a wide angle at closer range without distortion unless you correct it in post. but then, you will lose some of the image, maybe even sufficiently such that it makes little sense to use a WA lens. A few steps backwards might have been better if you don't like such distortions. Apart from the fact that the equivalent angle of view is approximately 2x (the xpan has an approximate AOV of a 28mm lens), this "get it all" picture" is really twisted out of shape.

If this is the effect you want, a WA is good for you. else, try other means of "getting it all" - take a few steps back. or even do a pano via stitching if it allows.

This pic is also not PP-ed. I had some left over film from 2007, and decided to finish it before I start with new ones. The saturation and colour shifts are really just attributes of the expired film. In this case, it turned out decent.

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Bessa R, 15mm F4.5, Expired Polaroid Iso 200 film